Posts Tagged ‘PEALD’

A new microwave electron cyclotron resonance (MECR) atomic layer deposition (ALD) process technology has been co-developed by Hitachi High-Technologies Corporation and Picosun Oy to provide commercial semiconductor IC fabs with the ability to form dielectric films at lower temperatures. Silicon oxide and silicon nitride, aluminum oxide and aluminum nitride films have been deposited in the temperature range of 150-200 degrees C in the new 300-mm single-wafer plasma-enhanced ALD (PEALD) processing chamber.

With the device features within both logic and memory chips having been scaled to atomic dimensions, ALD technology has been increasingly enabling cost-effective high volume manufacturing (HVM) of the most advanced ICs. While the deposition rate will always be an important process parameter for HVM, the quality of the material deposited is far more important in ALD. The MECR plasma source provides a means of tunable energy to alter the reactivity of ALD precursors, thereby allowing for new degrees of freedom in controlling final film properties.

The development team claims that MECRALD films are superior to other PEALD films in terms of higher density, lower contamination of carbon and oxygen (in non-oxides), and also show excellent step-coverage as would be expected from a surface-driven ALD process. The relatively density of these films has been confirmed by lower wet etch rates. The single-wafer process non-uniformity on 300mm wafers is claimed at ~1% (1 sigma). The team is now exploring processes and precursors to be able to deposit additional films such as titanium nitride (TiN), tantalum nitride (TaN), and hafnium oxide (HfO). In an interview with Solid State Technology, a spokesperson from Hitachi High-Technologies explained that, “We are now at the development stage, and the final specifications mainly depend on future achievements.”

The MECR source has been used in Hitachi High-Tech’s plasma chamber for IC conductor etch for many years, and is able to generate a stable high-density plasma at very low pressure (< 0.1 Pa). MECR plasmas provide wide process windows through accurate plasma parameter management, such as plasma distribution or plasma position control. The same plasma technology is also used to control ions and radicals in the company’s dry cleaning chambers.

“I’m really impressed by the continuous development of ALD technology, after more than 40 years since the invention,” commented Dr. Tuomo Suntola, and the famous inventor and patentor of the Atomic Layer Deposition method in Finland in 1974, and member of the Picosun board of directors. “Now combining Hitachi and Picosun technologies means (there is) again a major breakthrough in advanced semiconductor manufacturing.”

MECRALD chambers can be clustered on a Picosun platform that features a Brooks robot handler. This technology is still under development, so it’s too soon to discuss manufacturing parameters such as tool cost and wafer throughput.

Applied Materials today unveiled the Applied Olympia ALD system, using thermal sequential-ALD technology for the high-volume manufacturing (HVM) of leading-edge 3D memory and logic chips. Strictly speaking this is a mini-batch tool, since four 300mm wafers are loaded onto a turn-table in the chamber that continuously rotates through four gas-isolated modular processing zones. Each zone can be configured to flow any arbitrary ALD precursor or to exposure the surface to Rapid-Thermal-Processing (RTP) illumination, so an extraordinary combination of ALD processes can be run in the tool. “What are the applications that will result from this? We don’t know yet because the world has never before had a tool which could provide these capabilities,” said David Chu, Strategic Marketing, Applied’s Dielectric Systems and Modules group.

Fig.1: The four zones within the Olympia sequential-ALD chamber can be configured to use any combination of precursors or treatments. (Source: Applied Materials)

Figure 1 shows that in addition to a high-throughput simple ALD process such that wafers would rotate through A-B-A-B precursors in sequence, or zones configured in an A-B-C-B sequence to produce a nano-laminate such as Zirconia-Alumina-Zirconia (ZAZ), almost any combination of pre- and post-treatments can be used. The gas-panel and chemical source sub-systems in the tool allow for the use up to 4 precursors. Consequently, Olympia opens the way to depositing the widest spectrum of next-generation atomic-scale conformal films including advanced patterning films, higher- and lower-k dielectrics, low-temperature films, and nano-laminates.

“The Olympia system overcomes fundamental limitations chipmakers are experiencing with conventional ALD technologies, such as reduced chemistry control of single-wafer solutions and long cycle times of furnaces,” Dr. Mukund Srinivasan, vice president and general manager of Applied’s Dielectric Systems and Modules group. “Because of this, we’re seeing strong market response, with Olympia systems installed at multiple customers to support their move to 10nm and beyond.” Future device structures will need more and more conformal ALD, as new materials will have to coat new 3D features.

When engineering even-smaller structures using ALD, thermal budgets inherently decrease to prevent atomic inter-diffusion. Compared to thermal ALD, Plasma-Enhanced ALD (PEALD) functions at reduced temperatures but tend to induce impurities in the film because of excess energy in the chamber. The ability of Olympia to do RTP for each sequentially deposited atomic-layer leads to final film properties that are inherently superior in defectivity levels to PEALD films at the same thermal budget: alumina, silica, silicon-nitride, titania, and titanium-nitride depositions into high aspect-ratio structures have been shown.

Purging (from the tool) pump-purge

Fab engineers who have to deal with ALD technology—from process to facilities—should be very happy working with Olympia because the precursors flow through the chamber continuously instead of having to use the pump-purge sequences typical of single-wafer and mini-batch ALD tools used for IC fabrication. Pump-purge sequences in ALD tools result in the following wastes:

* Wasted chemistry since tools generally shunt precursor-A past the chamber directly to the pump-line when precursor-B is flowing and vice-versa,

* More wasted chemistry because the entire chamber gets coated along with the wafer,

* Wasted device yield because precursors flowing in the same space at different times can accidentally overlap and create defects.

“Today there are chemistries that are more or less compatible with tools,” reminded Chu. “When you try to use less-compatible chemistries, the purge times in single-wafer tools really begin to reduce the productivity of the process. There are chemistries out there today that would be desirable to use that are not pursued due to the limitations of pump-purge chambers.”

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